Methods of and apparatus for setting roller guides in rod mills

ABSTRACT

In the setting of the guide rollers of a rolling stand in a rodrolling mill use is made of an optical device instead of the human eye. The optical device and a holder for the guide rollers are made interchangeable in a support for the holder. The support and the rolls in the stand are adjusted in position while the optical device is in the support, and then the optical device is replaced by the holder. The position of the guide rollers in the holder is preset with the use of the same or another optical device.

I United States Patent [151 3,640,109 Ashton et al. 5] Feb. 8, 1972 [54] METHODS OF AND APPARATUS FOR Relerences Cited SETTING ROLLER GUIDES IN ROD UNfrED STATES p s MILLS 796,335 8/l905 1611mm ..72/428 [72] Inventors: George Walker Ashton, Totley, Sheffield; 39 9 Elder --72/37 John Congreve Ashton, Sheffield, both of 3,461,707 8/1969 Maltbyu ..72/428 d Engla FOREIGN PATENTS OR APPLICATIONS 1731 Ass'gnees' g g$f f :f l,056,l94 1/1967 Great Britain ..72/37 gfrs z Rmhe" Primary Examiner-Charles w. Lanham g Assistant Examiner-R. M. Rogers [22] Filed: Apr. 14, 1969 Attorney-Sughrue, Rothwell, Mlon, Zinn and Macpeak [21] Appl. No: 815,583 [57] ABSTRACT In the setting of the guide rollers of a rolling stand in a rod- [30] Forelg Appllcauon Pnomy Dam rolling mill use is made of an optical device instead of the Apr. 23, 1968 Great Britain 19,221/68 human The Optical device and a holder for the guide lers are made interchangeable in a support for the holder. The 52 U.S. c1 ..72/31, 72/250, 72/428 PP and the mils the Stand are adjusted Position While 5 1 1 Int. Cl .3216 51/00, B2lb 39/20, 821d 43/16 F Ptica1 device is f' the P device 58 Field of Search ..72/37 250 227 42s replaced by The gu'de the holder is preset with the use of the same or another optical device.

7 Claims, 10 Drawing Figures PATENTED FEB 8I972 3,640,109

sum 1 or 5 msme FEB 4 8 2 I I'M 3' I HA .lllflng'ijg u ml. I

\ U f A Q?! l L v n I 7 5 9 vi PATENTEU FEB 8 I972 SHEET 0F 5 METHODS OF AND APPARATUS FOR SETTING ROLLER GUIDES IN ROD MILLS A mill for rolling a billet to rod or rod to wire is essentially composed of a considerable number of pairs of circumferentially grooved work rolls, and the metal strand passes at high'speed in turn through each pass defined by two opposed grooves. It is necessary to guide the strand accurately to and from each pass, and it is common practice to provide a guide unit comprising a pair of roller guides at the inlet side of each pass, and'another at the outlet side. If these guides are not accurately aligned with the pass, the strand will not travel properly from the mill and may be spoilt. In fact the obtaining of a satisfactory strand depends largely on the proper setting of the; guides.

The guide rollers are subjected to very considerable wear, and have to be replaced frequently in a mill in regular use. Each time the guide unit is removed for the replacement of a pair of guide rollers, it is necessary to set it properly in position agam.

Each guide unit is normally adjusted in position by eye, the operation being extremely awkward and often involving pushing a gauging rod through the unit and pass in order to test the accuracy of the setting.

What is involved will be more clearly understood by reference to FIGS. 1 and 3 of the accompanying diagrammatic drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 is a front view of a pair of rolls and associated parts in a typical mill;

FIG. 2 is a section on the line II-II in FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 is a section on the line IIIIII in FIG. 2;

FIG. 4 is a plan showing an optical device in position in front of the rolls;

FIG. Sis a section on the line V-V in FIG. 4;

FIG. 6 is an elevation and FIG. 7 a plan illustrating the use of the same optical device in the setting of the guide rollers in a guide unit;

FIG. 8 is an elevation of an instrument which may altematively be used for setting the guide rollers in the guide unit;

FIG. 9 shows an image seen when the guide rollers have been properly set with the use of the instrument shown in FIG. 8; and

FIG. 10 illustrates how a template used in the instrument of FIG. 8 may be made.

Referring first to FIGS. 1 to 3, two rolls of a typical roll stand are shown at l and 2, one being vertically above the other. Both are circumferentially grooved as shown at 3 to provide two series of passes for two strands rolled simultaneously. The rolls are supported in main vertical frame members 4 and of course are driven in operation. Only one end of the roll stand is showmand the frame member 4 is purely diagrammatic. A guide unit 5 is shown in position in front of the rolls to guide the strand to one of the passes. This unit comprises a holder 6 and two rollers 7 each carried by and mounted to rotate freely in a metal support or leaf 8. The two leaves 8 are pivotally mounted in opposite sides of the holder 6 to turn about vertical axes so that each roller 7 can be moved towards or away from the other. The pivot-mounting of each leaf 8 is constituted by a vertical pivot pin 9 which passes through a bore 10 in the part of the holder above the leaf, and then through the leaf to rest at its lower end in a socket 11 in the part of the holder below the leaf. To enable each lead to be set in an adjusted position, two adjusting screws 12 and 13 pass through threadedopenings in it to bear on a vertical surface of the holder.

The holder is essentially cylindrical, except of course where it is recessed to accommodate the leaves 8, and it is supported in a guide box 14 which has a part-cylindrical recess 15 of the exact diameter required to receive the holder as a snug fit. The holder is clamped in'position in the guide box 14 by a yoke 16 which engages its upper cylindrical surface and which is forced downwards by a bolt 17 that passes through a crossbar 18 forming part of the guide box. The guide box is itself supported by a rest bar 19, and provision is made for relative sliding movement of the guide box 14 and rest bar 19 in the direction of the axis of the rolls. To guide this movement, the guide box is made with a bevelled edge 20 which engages a complementary undercut edge on the rest bar. In the typical construction shown it is the rest bar which is moved horizon tally when adjustment is required, and in fact the bar is formed at each end with a slot 21 through which a bolt 22 passes into a threaded hole in the frame member 4, so that by slackening off the bolts the bar can be moved through the length of each slot in a horizontal direction, carrying the guide box with it. This adjustment allows the guide box to be brought opposite whichever pass is required. The rest bar 19 and guide box 14 are clamped together by a clamp 23 in the adjusted position. The rest bar is supported by two eccentrics 24, and by rotating these its vertical position can be adjusted. The diameter of the shank of each bolt 22 is less than the width of the slot 21 so as to accommodate the minor vertical movement required, and the bar is held in the vertically adjusted position by tightening the bolts 22.

From what has been said above, it will readily be understood that the two guide rollers 7 must be so set in relation to the pass that when a rod enters the guide unit in the direction of the arrow A it will pass straight through the gap between the guide rollers and be guided by them properly to the pass. The same is true when other forms of roller guide unit are used. In each case the centerline of the guide unit must be brought into proper position in relation to the roll pass.

The invention is based on the use of an optical device constructed to enable the position of a centerline in it to be observed. According to the invention, such an optical device and the guide unit are so externally shaped that when one is in a support for the unit its centerline lies in the same position in space as that of the other when it is in the support. The sup port and the rollers are then relatively adjusted to bring the centerline of the optical device into the position required for that of the guide unit, the optical device is removed and the guide unit is put in its place.

Although the position of the rollers in the guide unit can be adjusted after the guide unit has been put in the support, it is very much preferred to preset them. Presetting can be done on a bench, and is very much more convenient than setting the rollers once the guide unit is in position in the mill. The presetting is itself preferably effected with the use of an optical device, which can be the same as or identical to that used in the mill stand, or which may be part of a separate instrument.

It is found that not only is the setting of the guides much facilitated, but also the necessary adjustments are made much more accurately in practice, with the result that there is an increase in the output of the mill.

Although of course guide rollers of different sizes or profiles must be used in the different stands of the mill, it is desirable in order to obtain the full advantage of the invention that all or as many as possible of the guide units should be externally similar so that a single optical device can be used in the setting of the guide units in different stands. The invention includes a set of similar roller guide units with the rollers adjusted so that in each unit the centerline lies in the same predetennined position in relation to the transverse perimeter of the unit, and an optical viewing device constructed to enable a centerline to be observed and having a transverse perimeter in part at least identical with that of each guide unit to enable the device and each guide unit to fit a single unit support identically, the centerline of the optical device being in the same position in rela' tion to the transverse perimeter as is the centerline in each guide unit.

The invention will now be described in further detail with reference to FIGS. 4 to 10 of the drawings. FIGS. 4 and 5 show an optical device 25 in position in the guide box shown in FIGS. 1 to. 3. This optical device 25 includes a cylindrical casing of the same external diameter as the holder 6 in the guide unit, that is to say the holder 6 and the optical device 25 are interchangeable in the guide box. The optical device is hollow internally, having a lens 27 at one end, an internal prism or mirror 28 mounted at 45 to the axis of the device and an eyepiece 29 which includes a ground-glass screen 30 marked by a pair of crossed hairlines. A light source diagrammatically illustrated at 31 is provided on the side of the rolls 1 and 2 remote from the optical device to illuminate the pass to be viewed.

Assuming that the guide rollers in the unit are preset, all the operator has to do is to make horizontal and vertical adjustments until he can see that the centerline through the pass coincides with the crossing point of the hairlines on the screen 30. Then he can remove the optical device and substitute the guide unit, and be sure that a rod passing through the guide unit will be properly guided through the pass.

FIGS. 6 and 7 show how the same or an identical optical device 25 can be used for the presetting of the guide rollers. A jig 32 is provided with two identical trough-shaped supports 33 and 34. The guide unit is then put in the support 33 and the optical device is the support 34, and since the supports are identical the centerlines of the guide unit and optical device must coincide. A light source 36 is provided on the side of the guide unit remote from the optical device, and the operator observes the gap between the guide rollers through the eyepiece 29. He adjusts the guide rollers to bring the centerline of the gap into coincidence with the crossing point of the hairlines. When this method of presetting the guide rollers is adopted, it may be necessary first to make sure that the roll gap is of the right width by the use of a gauging rod. To facilitate the subsequent adjustments necessary to ensure not only that the roll gap is of the right width but that its centerline is in the proper place, the viewing screen in the optical device may be marked not only with crossed hairlines but also with appropriate graduations.

While the method of presetting of the guide rollers illustrated by FIGS. 6 and 7 is convenient because it requires the use of only one optical instrument, it is preferable to dispense completely with any gauging rod and instead preset the guide rollers with a separate instrument as illustrated by FIGS. 8 to I0. This instrument comprises a base 36 which carries a housing 37 for a lamp 38 and a condensing lens 39; a troughshaped support 40 for a guide unit 5; a housing 41 for a magnifying lens 42; and a hood 43 the end 44 ofwhich constitutes a viewing screen. An opening is made in the viewing screen 44 to receive a bolt 45 by which the template 46 can be secured to the screen. The template used for any particular guide unit is identical in shape but not in size with the gap that should exist between the guide rollers when the unit has been properly adjusted. The size of the template depends upon the magnifying power of the lens 42 and the distance is measured along the support 36 between the axes X of the rollers 7, the magnifying lens 42 and the screen 44. The proportions may conveniently be such that the operator looking into the hood 43 sees an image of the roll gap that is live times the real size, the template of course then being five times the size of the proper gap. The image of the two guide rollers 7 thus seen by the operator is shown at 7 in FIG. 9, which also shows the template 46. What the operator has to do is to adjust the two guide rollers until the image of their profiles coincides with the perimeter ofthe template as shown in FIG. 9.

The templates used may conveniently be of thin sheet steel and can easily be produced by making a drawing of the pass with which the guide unit is to he used on a scale appropriate to the magnification (five times in the example given above) as shown at 74 in FIG. 10. In the example under consideration the pass is oval as shown, and the template 46 is rectangular. When the oval pass 47 has been drawn, a drawing of the template is made around it as shown at 48 the lines of this drawing 48 touching the oval 47 at four points, and the angles of the sides of 48 corresponding exactly to those of the profile of the guide rollers. From the drawing 48 thus made, a template can readily be cut.

The method illustrated by FIGS. 8 and I0 has the further advantage that wear on the guide rollers is shown up on the screen 44, and accordingly the rollers can themselves be reground or replaced by another pair ifit is clear that the wear is likely to impair proper rolling of a rod.

What is claimed is:

1. A method of centering a unitary roller guide unit having rollers in relation to a roll pass in a rolling mill comprising the steps of inserting in a support for the unit an optical device constructed to enable the position of a centerline in it to be observed, the optical device and the roller guide unit so being externally shaped that when one is in the support, its centerline lies in the same position as the other, relatively adjusting the support in both the horizontal and vertical planes with respect to the rolls in order to bring the centerline of the optical device into the position required for that of the rollers of the roller guide unit, removing the optical device and putting the roller guide unit with the rollers in its place without further adjustment.

2. A method of centering a roller guide unit in relation to a roll pass in a rolling mill comprising the steps of,

presetting the guide rollers in the guide unit by adjusting the guide unit in accordance with an image of the gap between the guide rollers projected onto a screen carrying a template of the shape of the required gap;

inserting in a support for the unit an optical device constructed to enable the position of a centerline in it to be observed, the optical device and the roller guide unit being externally shaped that when one is in the support, its centerline lies in the same position as the other, relatively adjusting the support in both the horizontal and vertical planes with respect to the rolls in order to bring the centerline of the optical device into the position required from that of the guide unit, removing the optical device and putting the guide unit in its place.

3. An assembly for guiding material of a substantial length into a rolling mill comprising,

a set of removable similar roller guide units having rollers;

means for adjusting the position of the rollers on the guide units;

a removable optical viewing device that enables a centerline to be observed and having a transverse perimeter in part at least identical with that of each guide unit;

a support member having fasteners that permit the substitution of the set of similar roller guide units for the optical viewing device while maintaining an identical centerline for each relative to the rolling mill;

means associated with the support member for permitting both a vertical and horizontal adjustment of the support member and accordingly of either the optical viewing device or set of similar roller guides, whereby the optical viewing device is first positioned on the support member to determine the relative position of the support member and the rolling mill and the set of similar roller guide units replace the optical viewing device to guide the material into the rolling mill.

4. The assembly of claim 3 where the means associated with the support member for permitting both a vertical and horizontal adjustment include an offset camming member and a slot transverse to the axis of the camming member.

5. A method according to claim 1 in which the guide rollers in the guide unit are preset in both the vertical and horizontal positions.

6. A method according to claim 5 in which the presetting is effected while the guide unit and the same or an identical optical device are aligned in supports such that their centerlines coincide.

7. For use in a rolling mill, a set of similar roller guide units with the rollers adjusted so that in each unit the centerline lies in the same predetermined position in relation to the transverse perimeter of the unit, and an optical viewing device constructed to enable a centerline to be observed and having a transverse perimeter in part at least identical with that of each guide unit to enable the device and each guide unit to fit a single unit support identically, the single unit support being adjustable both in the vertical and horizontal plane, the centerline of the optical device being in the same position in relation to the transverse perimeter as is the centerline in each guide 5 unit with the rollers. 

1. A method of centering a unitary roller guide unit having rollers in relation to a roll pass in a rolling mill comprising the steps of inserting in a support for the unit an optical device constructed to enable the position of a centerline in it to be observed, the optical device and the roller guide unit so being externally shaped that when one is in the support, its centerline lies in the same position as the other, relatively adjusting the support in both the horizontal and vertical planes with respect to the rolls in order to bring the centerline of the optical device into the position required for that of the rollers of the roller guide unit, removing the optical device and putting the roller guide unit with the rollers in its place without further adjustment.
 2. A method of centering a roller guide unit in relation to a roll pass in a rolling mill comprising the steps of, presetting the guide rollers in the guide unit by adjusting the guide unit in accordance with an image of the gap between the guide rollers projected onto a screen carrying a template of the shape of the required gap; inserting in a support for the unit an optical device constructed to enable the position of a centerline in it to be observed, the optical device and the roller guide unit being externally shaped that when one is in the support, its centerline lies in the same position as the other, relatively adjusting the support in both the horizontal and vertical planes with respect to the rolls in order to bring the centerline of the optical device into the position required from that of the guide unit, removing the optical device and putting the guide unit in its place.
 3. An assembly for guiding material of a substantial length into a rolling mill comprising, a set of removable similar roller guide units having rollers; means for adjuSting the position of the rollers on the guide units; a removable optical viewing device that enables a centerline to be observed and having a transverse perimeter in part at least identical with that of each guide unit; a support member having fasteners that permit the substitution of the set of similar roller guide units for the optical viewing device while maintaining an identical centerline for each relative to the rolling mill; means associated with the support member for permitting both a vertical and horizontal adjustment of the support member and accordingly of either the optical viewing device or set of similar roller guides, whereby the optical viewing device is first positioned on the support member to determine the relative position of the support member and the rolling mill and the set of similar roller guide units replace the optical viewing device to guide the material into the rolling mill.
 4. The assembly of claim 3 where the means associated with the support member for permitting both a vertical and horizontal adjustment include an offset camming member and a slot transverse to the axis of the camming member.
 5. A method according to claim 1 in which the guide rollers in the guide unit are preset in both the vertical and horizontal positions.
 6. A method according to claim 5 in which the presetting is effected while the guide unit and the same or an identical optical device are aligned in supports such that their centerlines coincide.
 7. For use in a rolling mill, a set of similar roller guide units with the rollers adjusted so that in each unit the centerline lies in the same predetermined position in relation to the transverse perimeter of the unit, and an optical viewing device constructed to enable a centerline to be observed and having a transverse perimeter in part at least identical with that of each guide unit to enable the device and each guide unit to fit a single unit support identically, the single unit support being adjustable both in the vertical and horizontal plane, the centerline of the optical device being in the same position in relation to the transverse perimeter as is the centerline in each guide unit with the rollers. 